The WisCon Chronicles, Vol 8^*

edited by Rebecca J. Holden

WisCon is filled with strong opinions and loud voices. Central to any discussion about definitions of feminisms are questions about outsiders and insiders: Who is WisCon? Who is feminist? Whose opinion matters? Whose voice is heard? Who counts? Who belongs to which generation and does that matter? What does WisCon mean now? What will it mean for future generations? This year’s volume of The WisCon Chronicles collects stories, poems, essays, blogs, and speeches that explore these questions within the framework of the feminism(s) of WisCon spanning “waves,” generations, and media.

The Stone Boatmen

by Sarah Tolmie

"...a powerfully original first novel"
   — Faren Miller, Locus, April 2014

"Certain imaginative novels never best-sell, yet remain alive, a singular treasure to each new generation that finds them — books such as Islandia, The Worm Ouroboros, Gormenghast. The Stone Boatmen has the makings of one of these quiet classics. It is lucid yet complex. Its strangeness fascinates, captivates. To read it is to find yourself in a country a long, long way from home, taken on a unforeseeable journey — and when it's over, you wish you were still there. "
   — Ursula K. Le Guin

Myths, Metaphors, and Science Fiction

by Sheila Finch

"This welcome discussion of the connections between future fiction and stories about human inception emphasizes how mythic roots contribute to the emotional power of narrative. Finch investigates the inexplicable awe and wonder that emanates from close encounters between myth and science fiction. This juxtaposition emphatically indicates that science fiction is the predominant mythic metaphor of our time.”
—Marleen S. Barr

New Amazonia

by Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett
Heirloom Books, No. 3
With an Introduction by Alexis Lothian

“Corrupt, Degraded, Rotten to the core is British Civilisation, and yet we find women who ought to know better, actually pretending that they are perfectly contented with the existing order of things,” declares the narrator of New Amazonia. Raging against an antifeminist statement signed by “ladies” opposing the cause of women’s suffrage, a writer falls asleep in 1889 and wakens, in company with a hashish-smoking “masher,” in a future world run by women. Originally published in 1889, New Amazonia tells the story of how this future world came to be and reveals its shiny, futuristic marvels as well as its government-administered horrors.

Spring in Geneva

by Sylvia Kelso

Mary Shelley, a young banker's son, and William, an excessively tall man with a "lividly hued visage, watery eyes, and blackened lips within a straggling beard," pit their wits and derring-do against Lord Byron, master of steampunk technology, and his thuggish minions.

News from Aqueduct Press Aqueduct has a monthly e-newletter! Subscribe to our complimentary Aqueduct Monthly here The Cascadia Subduction Zone The July 2014 issue of The Cascadia Subduction Zone is now available. New e-books from Aqueduct Press! The WisCon Chronicles, Vol 8, edited by Rebecca J. Holden Myths, Metaphors, and Science Fiction by Sheila Finch Numa by Katrinka Moore Alien Bootlegger and Other Stories by Rebecca Ore Lonely Stardust by Andrea Hairston The Stone Boatmen by Sarah Tolmie New Amazonia by Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett Awards Strange Matings, edited by Rebecca J. Holden and Nisi Shawl, is a 2014 Locus Awards Finalist, Eleanor Arnason's Big Mama Stories is on this year's Tiptree Honor List. Andrea Hairston's Redwood and Wildfire has been awarded the Carl Brandon Society's Kindred Award.

Systems Fail

by Hiromi Goto and N.K. Jemisin

Systems Fail celebrates the work of Hiromi Goto and N.K. Jemisin, WisCon 38’s Guests of Honor. The volume includes two pieces of Goto’s short fiction, N.K. Jemisin’s Nebula Award-nominated story “Non-Zero Probabilities,” and a selection of Jemisin’s essays as well as her 2013 Continuum IX Guest of Honor speech. In addition, the authors talk at length with interviewers knowledgeable about their work: Goto with writer and editor Nisi Shawl, and Jemisin with critic and scholar Karen Burnham.

Aqueduct Press is pleased to release the volume in conjunction with WisCon 38, held in Madison, Wisconsin over the Memorial Day weekend, in a limited, numbered edition of small trade paperbacks.

Lonely Stardust

by Andrea Hairston

Lonely Stardust: Two Plays, a Speech, and Eight Essays brings us the texts of nine marvelous works of scholarly performance as well as two works of drama in which the fantastic shows us the way through despair. Taken together, these essays and plays broadcast a message of hope and intelligence that defiantly insists that our ability and desire to tell stories defines our humanity and is one of our most valuable resources.

Numa

by Katrinka Moore

The poems in Numa tell the story of a shape-shifting numen. Numa, whose home body is that of a wild feline, learns by trial and error to take the form of other animals, plants, and the elements. As she grows up, she uses her skill to experience and share the divine in ordinary aspects of the world. She gives birth to a cub and begins raising her to shape-shift. Then an interloper appears, a young man on a quest for glory who believes he should defeat the “monster” in the forest.

The XY Conspiracy

by Lori Selke

Why Are There No Women in Black?

Jyn, an Asian-American lesbian, makes her living stripping in clubs in San Francisco. But stripping is only her day job. Her true vocation is UFO hunting. One night, working at her day job, she sights a Man in Black and realizes he is stalking her...